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“I love what I am doing for my business and really enjoy it,” said Kenzie Biggins, Uniquely Virtual owner. Her company provides virtual executive assistant services to help retiring executives, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations to provide administrative solutions. Kenzie’s secret sauce to business success is helping her team understand that they are part of something greater.

When asked what motivated her to become an entrepreneur and what drives her business success, Kenzie expressed the need to support retiring executives’ needs. Uniquely Virtual is revolutionizing virtual support by connecting clients with the virtual administrative help needed to increase productivity.

Uniquely Virtual provides two products. The first product is subscription based virtual executive administrative support. It is targeted towards retiring executives, but often utilized by small businesses and nonprofits. This product is sold under the Uniquely Virtual brand name. The other product is a virtual shared workspace. It is targeted towards busy professionals who need access to on-demand administrative support, coaches, and temporary meeting spaces.

What’s been Kenzie’s greatest business success? She humbly smiled and answered “I am working on that.” She explained, “As an entrepreneur, I always focus on what is the next step. I don’t recognize success because I am in it so deeply all the time.”

One factor that makes her company unique from her competitors is that she takes a lot of time to certify her service providers. All virtual assistants’ skill sets have been tested and verified and she routinely evaluates each assistant to ensure they are producing positive results for clients. Moreover, she and her employees have spent plenty of time accessing the onboarding process in pairing clients with the right virtual assistant. Kenzie took two years to develop this process. She also has adopted strategic steps to cultivate client relationships.

Kenzie believes that there are three kinds of entrepreneurs: those who start a business, those who grow a business, and those who stay in business. “You have to determine which type of business owner you are and stay in that lane,” said Kenzie. She believes many people get stuck because they think they are the only person who can run the business forever. Kenzie emphases, “I am not that kind of person. I am not afraid of a succession plan that has someone else coming in and running a piece of business.”

Kenzie participates in the Minority Business Accelerator program. She honestly expressed thoughts after attending the first class, “I felt exhausted. I need to go home and take a nap, but I can’t because I have work to do.” She also mentioned that the MBA program helps her tremendously as a business owner. “It causes me to slow down and take a look at everything in the business. I have read materials, evaluated processes, and set smart measurable goals,” said Kenzie.

Kenzie advises for minority business entrepreneurs or women business entrepreneurs to find your tribe or group in your space who will hold you accountable, encourage you, and have a “real talk” conversations with you. Finding someone you can call when you face difficulties and who can talk you down or talk you up when you need it is essential.

The Greenville Chamber’s Minority Business Accelerator Program helps accelerate the development of high potential minority business enterprises (MBEs) to strengthen and expand the regional minority entrepreneurial community. Occasionally, we spotlight the participating companies and their success stories or other MBA news of interest.

Minority Business Accelerator (MBA) is a program of the Greenville Chamber which actively seeks to improve the capacity of minority owned firms by increasing recognition of the value of minority businesses as suppliers, strategic partners, and, ultimately, as effective engines for job growth, economic development and wealth creation. MBA prepares high potential minority-owned businesses for accelerated growth and expansion through business development services, mentoring, targeted training, access to large corporations for partnership opportunities and custom roadmap to sustainable growth. MBA helps MBEs overcome growth barriers creates access to new opportunities for ethnic diverse businesses, connecting them with the right resources and results-driven strategies to fuel their growth and build capacity.

MBA Facts:

1 of 5 Chambers in the country to offer a Minority Business Accelerator program

Approximately $10 MIL in contracts awarded since inception

Approximately 140 jobs created since inception

Nika White is the Senior Advisor to the Greenville Chamber’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative.